compositions mimic these sounds, but
Bulow’s overture attempts to retell the region’s
dynamic history so that this ache is expressed
alongside the celebration of multiple cultures
that he witnessed in Rapid City.

Marsh, who also studies the pan-Indian resistance movement founded by
Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa that took place
near Purdue’s campus at Prophetstown,
is quick to mention that the knowledge of
indigenous peoples is the oldest human
cultural experience available. “There is no
greater conduit for the transmission of this
kind of human knowledge than through art
and culture,” she says. While she notes that
Native Americans tend to remain invisible to
most people, her research, along with Bulow’s,
focuses on improving our awareness of the
productivity and value of Native American
contributions.

“Art has a mysterious power,” says Bulow.
“It is an imprint of human culture.”

By Melissa Fraterrigo.

Juana Contreras Garcia and her father, Tomasa,
show Associate Professor of History Dawn
Marsh and her daughter Harper Otawka
(BA 2012, Spanish and English) a back-strap
loom—a type of loom that dates to the
pre-Columbian era. Otawka (who has also
completed research in Mexico on a Fulbright
grant), is dressed in a traditional Zapotec
wedding outfit that, along with the textiles
in her hair, was woven by Contreras Garcia
(page 8, top). Contreras Garcia weaves silk
yarn into a finished textile at her loom
(page 8, bottom). Maria Mendoza Ruiz grinds
dried cochineal (an insect that produces red
dye). The wool yarn displayed behind her,
which Mendoza Ruiz and her husband Fidel
specialize in, is all dyed using local, natural
materials (this page). All photos were taken
near Teotitlàn de Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico,
by Dawn Marsh.